5. The prospect for 1840 is good. That people have no fear of ruin after emancipation, is proved by the building of sugar works on estates which never had any before, and which were obliged to cart their canes to neighbouring estates to have them ground and manufactured. There are also numerous improvements making on the larger estates. Mr. H. is preparing to make a new mill and boiling-house on Colliton, and other planters are doing the same. Arrangements are making too in various directions to build new negro villages on a more commodious plan.
6. Mr. H. says he finds his apprentices perfectly ready to work for wages during their own time. Whenever he needs their labor on Saturday, he has only to ask them, and they are ready to go to the mill, or field at once. There has not been an instance on Colliton estate in which the apprentices have refused to work, either during the hours required by law, or during their own time. When he does not need their services on Saturday, they either hire themselves to other estates or work on their own grounds.
7. Mr. H. was ready to say, both as a planter and a magistrate, that vice and crime generally had decreased, and were still on the decrease. Petty thefts are the principal offences. He has not had occasion to send a single apprentice to the court of sessions for the last six months.
8. He has no difficulty in managing his people--far less than he did when they were slaves. It is very seldom that he finds it necessary to call in the aid of the special magistrate. Conciliatory treatment is generally sufficient to maintain order and industry among the apprentices.
9. He affirms that the negroes have no disposition to be revengeful. He has never seen any thing like revenge.
10. His people are as far removed from insolence as from vindictiveness. They have been uniformly civil.
11. His apprentices have more interest in the affairs of the estate, and he puts more confidence in them than he ever did before.
12. He declares that the working of the apprenticeship, as also that of entire freedom, depends entirely on the planters. If they act with common humanity and reason, there is no fear but that the apprentices will be peaceable.
Mr. Thomas is attorney for fifteen estates, on which there are upwards of two thousand five hundred apprentices. We were informed that he had been distinguished as a severe disciplinarian under the old reign, or in plain terms, had been a cruel man and a hard driver; but he was one of those who, since emancipation, have turned about and conformed their mode of treatment to the new system. In reply to our inquiry how the present system was working, he said, "infinitely better (such was his language) than slavery. I succeed better on all the estates under my charge than I did formerly. I have far less difficulty with the people. I have no reason to complain of their conduct. However, I think they will do still better after 1840."
We made some inquiries of Dr. Bell concerning the results of abolition in Demerara. He gave a decidedly flattering account of the working of the apprenticeship system. No fears are entertained that Demerara will be ruined after 1840. On the contrary it will be greatly benefited by emancipation. It is now suffering from a want of laborers, and after 1840 there will be an increased emigration to that colony from the older and less productive colonies. The planters of Demerara are making arrangements for cultivating sugar on a larger scale than ever before. Estates are selling at very high prices. Every thing indicates the fullest confidence on the part of the planters that the prosperity of the colony will not only be permanent, but progressive.